


Wit Beyond Measure

by OperaticPierrot



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Humor, Mad Science, to be specific Rowena is Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 00:49:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15652377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OperaticPierrot/pseuds/OperaticPierrot
Summary: When the Killing Curse hit Harry Potter that Halloween, he died... but someone else woke up. Someone who doesn't particularly care about keeping up appearances and whose social incompetence is matched only by her brilliance in every other field. Rowena Ravenclaw is back, and she's a bit of a mad scientist. The poor Wizarding World won't have any idea what hit it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm putting the finishing touches on the next chapter of _Sights Unseen_ , but because that's a more structured work I'm also doing some outlining for the future to make sure I've got my ducks in a row! In the meantime, have some of this. It will usually have chapters of 1k-2k words, posted whenever I write one up, and isn't intended to be particularly serious. I hope it's entertaining!

Reincarnation is an odd thing. In the vast majority of cases, a reincarnated soul will retain no more than slight echoes of their past lives. At most, a person might find themselves having odd flashes of insight related to the experiences of their past lives.

There are some exceptions, of course. Some monastics are capable of awakening memories of their previous lives, or even of seeing the past lives of others. Some magics exist that allow their wielders to recover scattered memories of things that once were.

And sometimes, a soul gets gut-punched by a spell that should throw it straight back into the cycle of reincarnation and finds itself with total recall of who it was, once upon a time.

But that's some movie-level amnesia nonsense, so it doesn't happen very often. Maybe once in a thousand years.

In October of 1981, little Harry Potter's soul resisted the Killing Curse's attempt to throw it out of his body, and someone else woke up.

* * *

Rowena Ravenclaw brought her hand to her head, intending to massage away the headache she'd found herself with. This proved difficult, as her arm and hand seemed rather less coordinated than she remembered. She looked down at herself, and suppressed a sigh.

She'd ended up as an infant again. While she couldn't remember what happened, this was probably Helga's fault, somehow — it had been the last three times, after all. She suspected it was revenge for the fact that Rowena had decided to skip past the waste of time of marriage and pregnancy and just created a homunculus daughter when Helga had gotten on her case about needing an heir. It was unfair, considering she had helped out when  _Helga_  wanted to bear a child, but when she had complained to Salazar he insisted that the real reason was obvious and she was just blind.

Ridiculous man. As if Rowena could be oblivious to anything — she had the most brilliant mind to have ever graced this planet of simpletons!

Rowena's wand was nowhere in sight, and she didn't recognize the half-destroyed room she was in or the corpses on the floor, but she could figure all of that out later — she probably just had temporary amnesia about some kind of experiment she'd been conducting. She clenched her tiny fist and cast the counterspell to the de-aging potion.

Nothing happened. Rowena frowned. Well, that wasn't right. She tried to remember how she might have ended up in this situation, and…

Ah. The last thing she remembered was an explosion when the erumpent-nundu hybrid she'd bred had sneezed so hard that it flew into a wall. She had probably died and been reincarnated. How vexing. She had no idea how much time had passed since her death — how many advancements had been made to magic in the time that she'd been indisposed? Unacceptable. She would need to catch up before she could begin doing her own research again, and that prospect grated on her.

It was a mark of Rowena's unusual level of self-confidence that she didn't even stop to consider how it was that she had completely retained her memories in her new life, despite the fact that she knew full well that such a thing was almost unheard of. She simply took it as a given that her brilliance was enough to transcend death and rebirth.

And perhaps that was justified, as a Killing Curse reawakening a past life really is an absurd idea. Better to assume that Rowena's genius was simply unable to be repressed by something as trifling as death, then.

For Rowena, this really wasn't an ideal situation. Now that she knew she'd been reincarnated, she could guess that the bodies on the ground were probably her new parents rather than deceased test subjects. There was no sign of their murderer, so at least she didn't need to worry about fighting off someone while limited by an infant body, but… if nobody came and found her soon, she'd need to figure something out. And that wasn't even getting into how ill-suited an infant body was to doing magical research! How would she buy the books she needed to catch up with the modern state of magic? Could her stubby little infant fingers even turn the pages?

Rowena took a moment to lament the fact that she had pushed back her research on shape-shifting and immortality in favor of attempting to produce the cutest, most deadly form of pet that she could. She would have to get back to that as soon as she had reached a more useful age — there was no way she would risk letting something like this happen again now that she knew how much it sucked.

The sound of loud footsteps startled her out of her thoughts, and she peered at the doorway. Hopefully this was just some concerned citizen and not anybody dangerous.

An absolutely enormous man with a shaggy black beard squeezed into the room. He had to be a half-giant — an ogre or half-ogre would have hair more like fur than human hair. Rowena stared up at him suspiciously. A full giant would almost certainly eat an unattended infant, but the temperament of half-giants varied. If she was lucky, this would be one of the ones that were stupid, but friendly.

Her concerns were alleviated when the half-giant caught sight of the body of the red-haired woman that was probably Rowena's new mother. The man burst into tears, which indicated that he was probably a friend of the family. That was good — half-giants were very resistant to magic, and while Rowena was more than capable of overcoming that problem, it was hard to shape magic with an infant's feeble body.

The half-giant's tear-stained face turned to her, and the beginnings of a smile became visible on his face. "Harry, yer okay!" he croaked, stumbling over to Rowena's crib.

'Hairy?' What kind of name was that supposed to be? Had she been born with an unusual quantity of hair and a pair of particularly unimaginative parents? Rowena felt insulted. 'Hairy' was not a name that would inspire awe — she would need to see about changing it as soon as possible.

"Hagrid?" Another shaky male voice asked. "I saw James. Is… is Lily…?"

"Sirius?" The apparent 'Hagrid' turned around.

"Yeah, it's me," the new man confirmed as he walked into the room. His eyes went first to the body of the woman — 'Lily,' Rowena guessed — and then to the crib.

"Harry," Sirius breathed, relieved. "He's okay."

'He?' Rowena puffed up in irritation. She had been reincarnated into a male body? What was this nonsense?

…on second thought, that might not be all that bad. It would be simple to adapt the spell she had used to remove the sexual characteristics of her previous body to work on this one, and considering the fact that it would require less modification of her innards she could probably use the spell safely even with a child body's poor control of magic. Being able to properly make herself neuter before needing to suffer through puberty a second time sounded incredibly appealing, and it's not like she particularly cared what pronouns were used to refer to her. If she did, she probably would have corrected Godric herself rather than let him carry on with his mistaken identification of her as male for the months prior to meeting Helga.

Rowena tuned out the rest of the conversation between Hagrid and Sirius as she mentally went to work on the arithmancy she'd need to properly transform herself, and didn't snap out of her focus even when the enormous man scooped her up and took her on a trip in some flying contraption. She didn't even break focus when a tall man with an absolutely ridiculous beard tucked an envelope into the basket she'd been placed in.

Just before sunrise, she completed her spell, nodding in satisfaction when she felt her genitalia recede up into her body and disappear. Problem solved.

Quite satisfied with her work, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

A loud scream woke Rowena from her comfortable nap. Her eyes cracked open and she glared up at the horse-faced woman looming over her. She hoped that this wasn't her new caretaker, but since she seemed to have been left on the doorstep of this house, that hope was probably futile. She looked around, taking note of the bizarre, uniform nature of the houses in the area and the strange metal contraptions sitting outside of them. Just where was she?

"Vernon!" The horse-faced woman shrieked. "Vernon, come here right this instant!"

"What is it, Pet?" A male voice asked. An enormously fat man, presumably Vernon, waddled up behind 'Pet.' Rowena grimaced — what a disgusting couple. The idea of sexual intercourse was disgusting enough when it wasn't between a whale and a stick insect. How did the man avoid snapping the woman in two?

"Look, Vernon," Pet growled, pointing down at Rowena.

"What's this, then?" Vernon blinked, staring at Rowena. He bent over, grumbling at the effort, and removed the letter from the basket. "Ruddy odd paper."

"That's not paper, Vernon," Pet whispered, voice shaking. "That's parchment. That's what  _they_  use."

Vernon's eyes narrowed, and he tore the envelope open with more force than Rowena felt was strictly necessary. The man let out a furious snarl.

"It says your sister and her idiot of a husband got themselves blown up, Petunia," Vernon grumbled. "This is their son, Harry."

Rowena's cheeks puffed up in indignation. She really needed to do something about that name — it made her sound like a dog, and she hated dogs. Nasty, smelly creatures that slobbered all over everything. She was firmly on Salazar's side that the best possible pets were snakes — they rarely left any kind of a mess, and they were content to be left on their own for long periods of time.

"I see," Petunia murmured. She steadied herself against the wall. "Who wrote the letter?"

"Some freak named 'Albus Dumbledore,'" Vernon read.

"He's the headmaster of that freak school, Hogwarts," Petunia said.

Rowena's ears perked up at that — the current headmaster of Hogwarts had been the one to put her here? What business did the man have with her care? Did he know who she was? He must have been the old man with the beard down to his waist. Rowena would need to see about shaving that if she found the time to drop by Hogwarts in the future — a beard like that was an offense to all that was decent, and no headmaster of Hogwarts should look like such a clown.

"What do we do, Pet?" Vernon asked. "Can we just take him to an orphanage?"

"…no," Petunia murmured. "I don't think that's an option. Dumbledore is probably watching us somehow. We'll need to take him in."

"What if he infects Dudley with his… freakishness?" Vernon asked fearfully.

Rowena rolled her eyes. These were obviously muggles, and while they had certainly improved in tolerance from her time — if they hadn't, she'd already have needed to defend herself from an attempt to drown her — they clearly hadn't improved in intelligence. Magic wasn't contagious — she would know, considering how many times she'd tried to turn it into a plague. Stupid muggles wouldn't be trying to kill magic-users if they had magic too, after all.

"That won't happen," Petunia assured. "I never caught it from Lily, after all."

"Do you think we can stamp it out of him, then?" Vernon asked hopefully. "Make sure he grows up normal?"

Well. That wouldn't do. Rowena could deal with being surrounded by idiots — that had been the case in her previous life too, after all — but she had no intention of being abused.

"Oh, do shut up," she growled. She was lucky that this body was old enough that it was capable of forming words. It struggled to do so with any fluency, but she was Rowena Ravenclaw! She wouldn't let some silly little cage of flesh slow her down. "It's theoretically possible to force a child's magic to turn inwards, but that just turns them into an explosion waiting to happen. If you don't want this village wiped off of the map, you'll get those stupid ideas out of your head." Not that someone as brilliant as Rowena could possibly end up in such a situation no matter what they did, of course, but they didn't need to know that.

The muggles stared at her, horrified.

"Vernon, did you hear him speak?" Petunia asked.

"I did, Pet," Vernon said, face white.

"Let me make some things perfectly clear, muggles," Rowena declared. "Firstly, I will not answer to that ridiculous 'Hairy' name. You will refer to me as Rowena. It is my name. Secondly, you will care for me properly, and in exchange I will not turn you into slugs. Unless you would like me to — it might improve your intelligence, actually. Though the lack of thumbs might prove problematic…" Rowena trailed off, lost in thought as she debated the pros and cons of opposable thumbs and pseudopods.

"Now see here," Vernon blustered. "You can't just threaten us!"

"Vernon," Petunia interjected, voice shaking as she placed a hand on her husband's arm. "We should do as he says. My sister wasn't like this — we need to be careful. We should write to Dumbledore."

"Yes, do that," Rowena agreed. "I'm sure he'd be quite a lot of help to me." The headmaster of Hogwarts would be able to help her get her hands on the books she needed to catch up with the world, after all. Something flickered in Petunia's expression, but Rowena dismissed it as unimportant. "Now, if you would kindly carry me inside, I'm getting hungry. I believe I should be capable of eating some solids, provided they're cut small enough."

Petunia carefully knelt down and lifted the basket, which she carried inside. Vernon shut the door behind them.

Rowena was given a small breakfast of some kind of bizarre canned, mushy food. It tasted disgusting, but her body seemed to have little trouble eating it, so she would grudgingly count it as acceptable fare for a baby. She ignored Petunia and Vernon whispering in the corner until an unpleasant sensation made itself known.

"Petunia!" Rowena called. "I require a change of diapers." She wasn't sure that she wanted to try vanishing filth so close to her body when she had so little control over her magic. The only reason she had successfully been able to alter her body was because she had spent four hours shaping the spell, and even then she had feared she might lose control near the end. As such, humiliating as it was, she would have to rely on this muggle to clean her.

Petunia's eyes narrowed, but she came over to help. Once Rowena's diaper had been removed, however, the woman screamed.

"What is it now?" Rowena asked peevishly.

"Where… where is your…" Petunia stammered.

"My genitals? I removed them," Rowena replied, rolling her eyes. "They would have been an inconvenience."

"An inconvenience," Petunia repeated faintly. She cleaned Rowena and changed her diaper in a daze, unable to comprehend the strange demon-spawn she had been saddled with by Albus Dumbledore. She wouldn't be writing to the headmaster, not after this — it was clear that the demon child wanted her to do so, which meant that doing so would be playing into his hands. No, Petunia would wait and see what this creature's intentions were. If it came to it… well, in the end, Petunia was Lily's sister. There was nothing she wouldn't do to protect her precious son Dudley.

Rowena was oblivious to Petunia's thoughts, impatiently waiting for the muggle to finish. Once she had been changed, she finished eating and rapped the end of her spoon on the table. "Petunia, I require lodgings."

"We'll need to get a crib for you," Petunia replied sourly. "We only have one, and it's for Dudley."

"The basket I came in will be an acceptable substitute for the moment, but I expect a proper piece of furniture to sleep on by the end of the day," Rowena stated. "In the meantime, you will still be required to provide me with a room."

Petunia and Vernon's faces contorted. They traded a look, and Vernon closed his eyes.

"I'll go clean the spare room, but then I need to go to work," Vernon grumbled.

"Acceptable," Rowena agreed. She watched as the man bustled off, nodding to herself. The utility of muggles as minions hadn't really improved over the years, but at least they were still capable of cooking and cleaning. Now, however, she need to learn more about this odd world — there were many strange devices around that she didn't recognize at all. "Petunia," she commanded, "look into my eyes."

The woman did so, clearly reluctant, and Rowena dove into her mind. While it was difficult with her shaky magical control, Rowena had practically invented the mind arts. At her peak, she had been able to learn someone's entire history simply by meeting their eyes. Even with her current handicap, it took the reincarnated witch only a minute to learn everything the woman did about advances in muggle technology, and despite herself she had to admit that she was impressed. Despite their lack of magic, muggles had accomplished some truly impressive things. Nuclear bombs, space travel, automobiles,  _computers_ …

Rowena really, really wanted a computer. "You will get me a computer," she commanded. "And one of those 'Atari' devices." 'Video games' sounded fascinating, despite how little Petunia knew about them.

Petunia stared at her. "Do you have any idea how expensive that would be?" the woman hissed.

"Yes," Rowena said, nodding, "but I also saw that your husband has a rather high salary. The price will not be an inconvenience."

Petunia spluttered. "You 'saw?' Did you read my mind, you little freak?"

"Yes," Rowena agreed. "I needed to learn about your modern muggle ways. You're rather less filthy than I expected — it's almost impressive." The soaps they made these days were a marked improvement over the ones that Rowena remembered.

Petunia raised her hand in fury, but Rowena's eyes narrowed and the slap met an invisible wall.

"You will not strike me," Rowena stated. "Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes," Petunia gritted out.

"With any luck, we will not find ourselves interacting much in the future," Rowena said, deciding to throw the woman a bone. She probably didn't need her caretakers hating her enough to try poisoning her mush. "You will simply be required to care for me until I am capable of walking effectively, and then I will be gone from your life."

"Is that so?" Petunia asked, narrowing her eyes. "Do you really think Albus Dumbledore will allow that?"

"I don't particularly care," Rowena replied, shrugging as well as her baby shoulders would let her. "He's just the headmaster of Hogwarts, not my boss." Really, she was his boss. She was one of the founders of the school, after all.

"I will not have my life ruined because Albus Dumbledore is upset with us for 'losing' you!" Petunia snarled.

"Then continue giving me lodgings," Rowena said, trying to shrug again. "I will not object to using this house as a temporary base of operations. I still see no need for us to interact overmuch."

"I'll hold you to that," Petunia grumbled.

"I'm done," Vernon announced, returning to the room. He pressed a kiss to Petunia's cheek and gave Rowena a glare. "I'll pick up a crib on my way home from work this evening."

"Get him a computer too, Vernon," Petunia sighed. "He demands one."

"And an Atari," Rowena reminded. "Make sure to get some games, too."

Vernon puffed up angrily, but Petunia shook her head and he deflated. "…fine," he muttered, then hurried away.

"Take me to my room," Rowena commanded.

Petunia frowned, but obeyed.

Rowna sighed. Good help was so hard to come by.


	3. Chapter 3

Rowena selected to revive her character, fascinated by the possibilities that this 'Adventure' game suggested. Muggles had invented something truly incredible — she needed to do more research on these things. Not only were they entertaining, they clearly required some small level of intellect to design. It could make for a pleasant hobby alongside her smaller magical research projects.

Now if only her baby muscles would stop spasming randomly and getting her character eaten by dragons. This was the third time, and it was starting to frustrate her.

When she was eaten for a fourth time, she threw down her controller in disgust and crawled over to her computer, a 'Sinclair ZX81.' It was an odd little thing, and rather limited, but as she fiddled with it Rowena knew for certain that in the years to come computers would become something amazing. She needed to adapt one for her own magical research purposes — the thing was almost as fast as she was at computing basic mathematical equations, though she was far faster for anything remotely complicated. If the speed was enhanced, it would allow Rowena to set up a computer to do her arithmancy for her while she handled more interesting things. That was an incredibly tempting thought. She would need to look into designing her own — magic would almost certainly be able to produce a superior product.

Between the Atari and the ZX81, Rowena didn't think she'd have any trouble entertaining herself while waiting for the time that she would be able to start learning more about modern magic. She was starting to get hungry again, though, so she shut down the computer and turned off the television it was plugged into. She caught sight of her reflection in the now-dark screen, and her eyes widened — how had she not known about that hideous scar on her forehead?

Rowena tried to focus some healing magic on it, willing it to go away, but it resisted her. She prodded at it with her magical senses and discovered why — it wasn't just packed full of dark magic, it had a fragment of someone's soul in it! Rowena's lip curled in disgust and she made to squash it, but then an idea hit her. She closed her eyes and delved deep into her own mind, seeking the soul fragment. It didn't take long to find, disgusting parasite that it was, and she smiled.

Several minutes later, she had fully assimilated the knowledge of Tom Marvolo Riddle, the self-proclaimed 'Lord Voldemort,' and eradicated the soul fragment. The scar healed over, leaving no trace of its presence, and Rowena found herself laughing uncontrollably.

'Voldemort' had been an idiot, but he wasn't as terrible at magic as most of the idiots Rowena had known in her last life. He had experienced a full magical schooling at Hogwarts only a few decades ago, and he had avidly kept up with advances as he delved into other kinds of magic. In one fell swoop, Rowena had made up for all of the time she'd missed with no need to read anything at all, leaving her able to focus on learning more about muggle technology.

Rowena had also learned that she'd been dead for nearly a thousand years, and that 'Voldemort' had defiled her diadem with another soul fragment. She'd deal with that eventually, if she remembered to do so. The diadem hadn't actually had any magical powers — she'd made up the whole thing as a test of prospective students, because anyone who coveted it would be too stupid to teach. Still, as unimportant as it was, it was a part of her legend, so leaving it in such a state would probably be bad or something. She wasn't entirely clear on why, but Helga had always insisted that leaving cursed objects lying around was bad, even if the curses were of an interesting sort.

So she'd probably deal with it at some point, out of loyalty to Helga's memory if nothing else. The woman had been oddly dedicated to what she called a 'conscience,' but she had been Rowena's friend anyway, if oddly touchy-feely sometimes. Rowena wouldn't allow that kind of behavior from anyone but Helga, so she hoped that nobody saw her current child-state as a reason to do something as ridiculous as hug her, let alone assault her cheeks with their filthy lips. She'd have to work on getting her magic back into shape to ward off any attempts to treat her as a cute child, but that was unlikely to meet with much success until she was capable of walking freely again. She would just have to rely on hardening the air like she had to stop Petunia from slapping her, which was an effective defense, if limited against anything other than raw physical force. Salazar had originally developed the technique to intercept tackle-hugs from Godric — the man's face had gotten even flatter from repeated collisions with invisible walls. Rowena shuddered at the memory — she didn't envy Salazar at all. Godric had been a large man, and she had no doubt that poor Salazar had ended up quite bruised before developing the spell. At least Helga had been gentle.

The fitter you were, the better your magic responded — an uncoordinated, clumsy infant body just wasn't capable of properly channeling magic without an absurd amount of concentration. While Rowena was the most brilliant magic-user to have ever lived and thus was obviously more than capable of supplying enough concentration to do anything she wanted, she wanted wielding magic to become effortless again. As such, she would need to design a proper exercise routine in preparation for the day she could implement it. Her old workout would be far too intense for her current body until it was quite a bit older.

Rowena's stomach growled, and she sighed. Being a baby was a pain.

* * *

It took Rowena a couple of months to notice the other baby in the house, in large part because Petunia and Vernon had been going out of their way to conceal his existence. Once she  _had_  noticed him, she was distinctly unimpressed. He already appeared to be taking after his father in size, and his parents were encouraging this distressing trend by providing him with excessive amounts of mush.

"Petunia," Rowena called.

"What is it?" Petunia muttered, hurrying to the doorway. Her eyes widened when she realized Rowena was staring at Dudley. "Leave him alone!"

"I have no intention of doing anything to him," Rowena sniffed. "I simply meant to inquire as to what your plans are for this child."

"W-What are you talking about?" Petunia stammered.

"Well, look at him," Rowena gestured clumsily. "You're fattening him up so much that you're either planning to eat him or planning for him to suffer." She tilted her head and had to regain her balance — her head-body ratio was messed up enough by being a clumsy baby that moving her head too far always threatened to tip her over. It was intensely frustrating. "If you're planning to eat him, there's a recipe I got from a hag that you may want to try. I can dictate it to you." Rowena had never eaten a baby before, but her hag associates had always insisted that their meat was very tender. She hadn't thought muggles engaged in such practices, but it appeared she may have been wrong. What a fascinating cultural difference.

"He's just a healthy eater!" Petunia snapped.

"If you say so," Rowena replied, trying for a shrug. "Just remember my offer." She crawled away, leaving a shaking Petunia behind.

Rowena didn't notice, but Dudley's meals grew much, much smaller after that incident.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm probably going to do single chapters for most of the years prior to Hogwarts, but those will trend a little longer for years when she's got a body old enough to do more than crawl around a little. I pity her teachers once she's forced to go to school…


	4. Chapter 4

Rowena’s new body was officially two and a half years old. Much to her frustration, this was not a substantial improvement over being only one year old.

Oh, there were differences — she had finally remastered walking, for one — but her fingers were still clumsy and she still had little in the way of balance. Her stamina was terrible, too, so she couldn’t spend a lot of time walking without rest.

On the other hand, her near-immobility meant that she’d been able to devote most of her time to gaining some measure of control over her magic. It was a shaky kind of control, nothing like she’d have once she was old enough to begin exercising, but it was a definite improvement over what she’d had before… and the reason that she was ready to try something new.

Rowena glared down at the pile of metal scraps in front of her, trash that Vernon had been able to bring home from work. She double-checked the diagrams she’d made based on the books about hardware that she’d read, then began her work.

A computer slowly took shape, the scrap metal fusing together and changing form. This computer was unique for more reasons than having been designed by Rowena Ravenclaw, of course. It ran on magic rather than electricity, and it would have thousands of tiny processors of Rowena’s own design. The material would be magically cooled to zero Kelvin, ensuring that it would function as a superconductor at all times. Rowena had no room for anything but the best in her design, after all.

Of course, Rowena had to admit that it was still a very crude design. While she was certain that it would outperform anything that Muggles would invent for at least a couple of years, the fact of the matter was that she simply wasn’t enough of an expert to completely revolutionize the technology to her satisfaction yet. That she would eventually become such an expert was not in question, merely the timeframe in which it would become the case.

Rowena smiled when the computer finished assembling itself, then booted it up to get to work on its software. She relied on her magic to work the keyboard, not trusting her clumsy baby fingers to do the job properly.

A few hours passed in a blur, Rowena happily lost in a world of code. It wasn’t until she heard a hesitant knock on her door that she did so much as blink.

“What is it, Petunia?” Rowena called, recognizing the height of the knock.

Petunia cautiously let herself into the room. “I’m signing Dudley up for preschool so that I can go back to work,” she half-whispered. “I’m sure you won’t want to attend, but once you’re a little older you’ll be legally required to do so.”

“Is that so?” Rowena asked, eyes narrowing.

The witch’s first instinct was to revolt, but… she had to admit that she was curious about Muggle schooling. Surely it would cover all kinds of interesting advances in Muggle technology that Petunia knew nothing about — the woman was as dry of curiosity as a desert was of water, knowing only what she’d read complaints about in her gossip rags. While the early years would likely cover basics that Rowena had no use for, the later years might be of use to her.

“Very well, Petunia,” Rowena declared. “You shall sign me up for this ‘preschool.’”

“I… what?” Petunia squeaked. “You don’t want to wait until you have to go?”

“The idea is tempting,” Rowena admitted. “But I’m curious about your Muggle schools. You will see to it that I can attend.”

“…of course,” Petunia managed, her hope that Dudley would be able to escape the menace for several hours every day going up in smoke. She bowed her way out of the room and hurried off to take care of the registration, cursing Albus Dumbledore yet again for the blight that he had forced on her family.

* * *

Rowena straightened her skirt, then followed Petunia and Dudley into the building that apparently served as the ‘preschool’ she would be attending. It was squat and boxy, with a gray exterior — not an attractive look at all for an institution of learning. Rowena made a mental note to do something about that later, as she would not subject herself to such dull surroundings.

She didn’t bother listening to the conversation between Petunia and the young woman who apparently served as the instructor of the class, instead casting her eyes around the room. In contrast to the exterior of the building, the walls were a pale blue and were decorated with exaggerated drawings of animals. There were a number of low tables, and blocks that the children in the room seemed to be enjoying stacking for some odd reason. The only books in the room seemed oddly thin, and when Rowena wandered over and opened one she discovered it was mostly full of pictures rather than words. She frowned.

“Would you like me to read to you while we wait for the rest of the class to arrive?” a voice asked, sounding almost hopeful. Rowena looked up to find the teacher looking down at her. Petunia appeared to have vacated the premises, and Dudley was throwing blocks at other children.

“I’m perfectly capable of reading myself, thank you,” Rowena snapped. She looked back down at the book. “I must say I’ve never heard of any creatures quite like these ones before. Where does the story take place? The island is unknown to me.”

“It’s fictional,” the teacher answered, looking bemused.

“Ah,” Rowena said, voice flat. “May I inquire as to the location of the textbooks, then?”

“Textbooks?” the teacher asked blankly. “This is preschool, Miss…?”  
“Rowena,” Rowena supplied, taking a moment to steal the teacher’s name — Jessica — from her head. “Rowena Ravenclaw. What does it being preschool have to do with its lack of textbooks?”

“Well, preschool is meant to prepare children for actual school and to take care of children while their parents are at work,” Jessica explained. “We don’t usually cover more than the basics of reading.”

Rowena twitched. “What do you cover, then?”

“Not much,” Jessica admitted. “We usually just leave the children to their own devices and try to prevent things from going badly.” She wasn’t quite sure why she was talking to this tiny girl as if she were an adult, but something about Rowena’s eyes…

“Unacceptable,” Rowena huffed. “I will not have my time wasted in such a manner.” Her eyes took on a calculating look. “You said that you simply supervise the children. I would imagine that leaves you with a great deal of free time.”

“It does,” Jessica said.

“Excellent,” Rowena declared. “You shall spend that time getting me caught up on the state of Muggle history since the late tenth century and the modern culture.”

“What?” Jessica managed.

“I’m glad you agree,” Rowena said, smiling as she turned to survey the classroom. “How many more children need to arrive before we begin?”

Jessica did a headcount. “Three.”

Rowena nodded in acceptance, watching as Dudley moved from throwing blocks to hoarding them. “Then I shall spend the time prior to my lessons reminding Dudley that sharing is a virtue.” She paused. “I can’t say I understand why, but Helga always sounded very sure of it, and I suppose she would know.”

Jessica could only stare as the bizarre girl stalked over and broke a solid wooden block in half over her cousin’s head. She buried her face in her hands, already regretting listening to her mother’s advice. “Become a preschool teacher,” she’d said! “You like children,” she’d said! “It will be fun,” she’d said!

Right now, Jessica wasn’t even sure whether she actually knew what children were. She certainly didn’t remember being that eloquent at that age, and none of the other children seemed to be that way. Was Rowena Ravenclaw the aberration, or were the rest of the students late bloomers that she was expected to help blossom?

If it hadn’t been her first day as a preschool teacher, the questions might not have nagged at Jessica quite so badly. As it was, she had no idea — and she didn’t want to ask someone and admit that she had no idea, lest they think her unqualified.

Jessica’s eyes blazed with determination as she straightened up. It was clear that children were capable of far more than she’d given them credit for, which meant her plans had to change as well. She hurried over to her desk and began writing a list of introductory topics to cover. Simple math, history, reading and writing…

She was going to be the best damn preschool teacher that those kids could possibly have, or she was going to die trying.


End file.
